The State from Columbia, South Carolina • 31

The Columbia, State South Carolina Capital Report Good morning THE CHANCE OF THUNDERSTORMS is slightly higher today at 30 percent. Otherwise, the forecast remains the same, with highs predicted for the mid-90s under partly cloudy skies. A JAM SESSION will be held tonight at Carolina Coliseum. Some of the area's best young basketball players will compete in the Coca-Cola and WWDM Slam Dunk Contest at 7:30. "EXTREMITIES" will be presented at 8:30 p.m.

by the Ridge Community Theatre's Alternative Players at the Haynes Auditorium in Leesville. Tickets are $5. GOVERNOR CAMPBELL will hold a news conference on economic development and job training at 10 a.m. today at the State House. SCHOOL HEALTH NURSES will gather at Embassy Suites hotel today for the statewide School Nurses Conference.

The meeting ends Friday. Education board approves budget The S.C. Board of Education on Wednesday approved a $1 billion budget for 1989-90. The request will be presented Sept. 6 to the S.C.

Budget and Control Board. Under the spending plan, the state Department of Education will ask for $23 million more to raise bus drivers' salaries, replace outdated buses and shore up the maintenance department. Other major increases include $4 million to open 12 regional centers to serve moderately to severely emotionally handicapped children; $2 million to buy new textbooks; and $7 million to expand adult education programs. About $3 million will go to raising the starting wage for bus drivers from $4.75 to $5.01 an hour and the top of the scale from $6.79 to $7.16 an hour. The department wants to spend $16 million to replace 500 school buses that are more than 10 years old and have more than 100,000 miles.

About $770 million of the budget will go to school districts. Principals' merit pay test expands Four more school districts will test a merit pay plan for principals this year under action taken Wednesday by the S.C. Board of Education. Laurens 55, Calhoun County, Chesterfield County and Spartanburg Two will join 60 districts testing ways of paying principals merit bonuses for job performance. Beginning this fall, 744 principals will be involved in the principal incentive program, which is expected to go statewide in 1989-90, according to state Department of Education figures.

About 20 percent of the principals in each district may receive annual awards of $2,500 to $5,000, depending on the program being tested by the district. Principal incentive is a provision of the Education Improvement Act of 1984 to reward principals who demonstrate superior job performance. Ethics panel appoints Ms. Shorter The state Ethics Commission has appointed Alice B. Shorter to serve as executive assistant to the agency's executive director.

Ms. Shorter, who has worked at the commission for 12 years, most recently had been business manager. As executive assistant, she will be responsible for administration, finance and personnel support to Executive Director Gary Baker and to the commissioners. She also will provide training programs for public officials and public employees through the University of South Carolina's Division of Gov- ernment Research and Service. DSS office gets reprieve on its rent Pee Dee Bureau KINGSTREE The S.C.

Department of Social Services has agreed temporarily to issue federal funds for the rent payment on Williamsburg County's DSS building. Williamsburg County pays the highest rent of any of the state's 46 county offices, and state officials had questioned whether the month rent is reasonable. Supervisor Alex Chatman said he "felt all along it was reasonable and that eventually the state would come to this realization also." A spokeswoman for the state DSS office said, however, that the county may still be held responsible for the payment. Norma Anderson said DSS Commissioner James Solomon has issued a statement explaining that, in an agreement reached between the state and county offices, the state office will pay a rent subsidy until a federal audit of the county operation is condacted. the federal authorities perform an audit and find the rent is Thursday, August Sex education materials OK'd The state will offer school districts instructional materials for their health and sex education classes, but not before asking the publisher to make "minor changes" in one of the books.

The S.C. Board of Education on Wednesday approved a kindergarten text and two books for grades six through eight. But the board wants the publisher to remove from the middle-school teacher guides suggestions that teachers take children on field trips to private family planning clinics and references from the student books that the AIDS virus cannot pass through a condom. "I am very satisfied with the materi- als," said Rod Gragg, a member of the board's curriculum committee who pushed for the changes. "I wanted to make sure that we do not violate the law and give out what may be possible inaccurate information about AIDS." Gragg said he wanted the AIDS-related change because there is no proof the virus cannot pass through the latex material of a condom.

If the publisher refuses to make the changes, the S.C. Department of Education will buy the books anyway but send warnings to teachers that some of the material may be questionable. The order could involve as many as 140,000 texts for grades six through eight, 6,000 teachers' guides and Joe State Skating Johnathon Rej, with the aid of a ramp, climbs the wall of Wal-Mart while skateboarding in the store's parking lot on Harbison Boulevard Wednesday afternoon. 1,200 kindergarten units, Joel Taylor, the state department's general education director, said. The materials should be ready for distribution to the schools in mid-September, he said.

The board's curriculum committee reviewed the books for nearly two hours Tuesday and for about 30 minutes Wednesday morning. The board passed the committee's recommendation unanimously, without discussion. No opposition was heard at the meetings. The General Assembly passed a law earlier this year that requires schools to develop "comprehensive health education pro- grams" that include, beginning in grade six, units on reproductive health education, family life, pregnancy prevention and sexually transmitted diseases. The Legislature provided $950,000 this year to buy curriculum materials for the programs.

Districts may reject the state-recommended materials in favor of their own choosing. Local advisory groups and parents may inspect the state-recommended materials before they are used, the law says. Districts must start the programs this fall in kindergarten through grade eight and See Sex, 6-C California court OKs extradition Associated Press SAN FRANCISCO The state Supreme Court on Wednesday cleared the way for convicted killer Mitchell Sims to be extradited to South Carolina, where he faces trial in the murders of two Domino's Pizza employees. The court, without dissent, lifted a stay of extradition it had imposed Monday and denied a hearing on Sims' claim that he is entitled to remain in California while appealing a murder conviction and death sentence from Los Angeles County. Attorney Leon Litwin said the action means Sims can be extradited to South Carolina immediately.

Gov. George Deukmejian approved the extradition in January, but California courts have allowed Sims to remain in the state while he sought review of the order. Sims, 28, was sentenced to death for the December 1985 murder of a Domino's Pizza deliveryman in a Glendale motel room. He and Ruby Padgett were convicted of tying the man up and drowning him in a bathtub; Ms. Padgett was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.

Two Domino's employees were killed in Hanahan, S.C., a suburb of Charleston, six days earlier. Sims could be sentenced to death again if convicted of those murders. A witness at the Los Angeles trial said Sims held a grudge against Domino's from the time he worked as a manager of a company pizza parlor in West Columbia, S.C., and quit over a reduction in bonus payments. In opposing extradition, Sims' lawyers said his presence in California would help them work on his appeal, correct any errors in the trial See Sims, 6-C Cameras to roll again at State Film Office By THOM FLADUNG Business Writer The State Film Office, dormant for a year without a director or a budget after an official said it was mismanaged and ineffective, will have as its director George A. Santulli, a television producer with the U.S.

Information Agency. Santulli will take over in October. His salary will be between $32,096 and $48,144. For salaries under $50,000, the state is required only to release a pay grade, or range, rather than a specific salary, a spokesman for the Development Board said. The Film Office, which operates out of the S.C.

State Development Board, is charged with promoting South Carolina as a site for producers interested in making movies, television shows and commercials. Last summer, Gov. Carroll Campbell vetoed the Film Office's $122,000 budget for the 1987-88 fiscal year, and positions for the two employees were eliminated. Development Board Chairman Dick Greer said at that time that mismanagement and ineffectiveness led to the budget cut. That opinion was not unanimous, however, as Development Board member Sam Tenenbaum, who was behind the establishment of the Film Office several years ago, said the budget cut was made without a valid reason.

Among the productions filmed in South Carolina the past several years have been the CBS miniseries Chiefs, the ABC miniseries North and South and the movie The Big Chill. For the current 1988-89 fiscal year, the Film Office was restored with a budget of $225,000 and three employees. "I have re-established the office on the basis of its commitment to professionalism, to the state and to the motion picture and television industry," Campbell said in a release. Santulli was chosen to head the Film Office from among 145 applicants by a selection committee that included Mike Daniel, Campbell's opponent in the last gubernatorial election and chairman of the advisory committee to the director of the Film Office, and Development Board member Robert L. Selman.

"He (Santulli) already had some working knowledge of South Carolina See Film, 6-C City bruised by rejection of Big Apple lore By BILL ROBINSON Staff Writer Sometimes, the fruit isn't as sweet as it would seem. That was the sensation sentimental Midlanders felt Wednesday when they read through the syndicated column penned by Abigail Van Buren. Dear Abby, as she's more commonly known, published a cornucopia of responses to a question about the origin of New York City's nickname, "'The Big Apple." Nowhere to be found in black and white was the Official Letter from Columbia Mayor T. Patton Adams outlining the Palmetto State theory on Gotham's moniker. "She obviously doesn't read all her mail," Adams said Wednesday.

Around these parts, old-timers believe the name came from a Depression-era nightclub called The Big Apple on Columbia's Park Street, where young blacks would perform an energetic dance of the same name. With the help of his staff, the Greater Columbia Chamber of Com- 11, 1988 By STEVE SMITH Staff Writer James Solomon Says state to pay subsidy excessive," Ms. Anderson said, "the county will be liable instead of the state." Williamsburg County, one of the state's poorest counties, pays $12.90 a square foot for office space. The year-old building was built and is owned by Florence County developer C.B. Askins Jr.

of Lake City, whose company was one of two construction firms to bid for the project. Under the lease agreement, Askins will receive $162,000 annually for 16 years. In May, Chatman said Asking told him the building cost $850,000 to build. merce and other community leaders, the mayor assembled what seemed to be a convincing package of material substantiating that bit of folklore. Included were newspaper clippings, a copy of a Life magazine article from 1937 and a videotape copy of a dance history film produced by the S.C.

Educational Television network. With great anticipation, the information, including a cover letter from Adams, was mailed several months ago to Abby. The columnist's editor, Alan McDermott, said she got a bushel basket full of mail on the subject "a couple of thousand letters, I would guess." McDermott spoke with Abby Wednesday and said she remembered getting "several packets (like Columbia's), all similar. "Frankly, she thought the other stuff was more interesting," McDermott said, adding the columnist tries to publish "a range of responses" when she asks readers for help on a question she can't answer. The "other stuff" McDermott referred to included: A letter from a reader in Atlanta who said the name was derived from a song and a dance made popular in 1930 through publicity generated by gossip columnist Walter Winchell.

A theory by a wag named Thomas E. Pendergast, who said Sir Isaac Newton's ideas about gravity came after getting bopped in the noggin while sitting under an apple tree in New York. An explanation from New York orator extraordinaire, Gov. Mario M. Cuomo.

The governor advanced the theory that entertainers in the 1920s and 30s especially jazz musicians coined the term to describe the place they considered "the big time." Initially, Abby contacted New York Mayor Ed Koch when she got an inquiry from a reader. Koch didn't know where the nickname came from, either. Adams was not discouraged by Columbia', explanation failing to get Abby's attention. Just recently, the mayor said he was asked to participate in a phone interview with the New York public radio network, where he described the North-South "Big Apple" connection. "They were very impressed.

It seemed clear to them it was the most plausible they had ever heard," Adams said. Judy Stringer, director of the Columbia Action Council, helped organize a celebration in late June saluting the reopening of the renovated Big Apple building, now being used as the headquarters for a catering service. "It was disappointing that Columbia put forth such a great effort and that we had the original dancers (from the 1930s) here and they didn't pick up on it," Ms. Stringer said. "We didn't get as much national attention that probably should've come our way.

But we all had a good time and that's what's important. A lot of people had a chance to reminisce.